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Here is my latest, and possibly last, SE project

After months of Photoshop work, I spent around 30 hours creating the most intense slideshow I have ever attempted. All done in SE except for the intro and the exploding words at the end, I pushed it to the limit by using multi layered Photoshopped files and having backgrounds and foregrounds appear and disappear. It starts out slow and builds up, just as the soundtrack does. I wish SE would continue on

Wow. I thoroughly enjoy your montages and appreciate all the Photoshop work that goes into them. Especially the subtle stuff such as the picture frame starting at 4:45. When I do montages, I like to watch the audience and their reactions during the presentation. It makes it worth all the hours put into it.

For the most part I have stopped using SE for montages. I get much better and quicker results using ProShow Producer and After Effects CS6 at this point
This is a recent one I produced. https://vimeo.com/63354948
password:montage321

A montage from about a year ago- The client's music picks for this one were a bit cooler than the previous one so it moves a bit betterhttps://vimeo.com/23348283
password:montage321

Thanks Santiago and Rich. That picture frame took a long time. It was one picture. I then had to create 3 seprate layers of one photo (the girls, the background and the sky. I used a digital juice background, faded in the girls, then the background water and stuff and finally, the sky which I gave motion to. After all that was done, I had to search google for a frame. I used the control tree to size everything to be sure that the layers behind the frame never got bigger or smalller than the frame. I did a slight zoom onall of it and used the z angle. It literally took me 30 mintues for that one picture. There were much more complex ones that than one. The problem with doing this is that I can see the pain and sweat that went into every darn picture and I could never sit back and just enjpy it. You can imagine my fury when I showed the family (who loved it) but sometimes look at the other and say something and that picture frame edit you speak of goes completely unnoticed. oh well.

Nice work Rich. When I began looking at photo montages on youtube, I saw many that resembled yours. I was going to go for that look bur decided to keep it completely free of any effects or templates. I wanted to make a slideshow that kept people interested by slight movement and manipulation. Did you do the first one from scratch in AE? I would have went that route but I did not have the luxury of time for AE's learning curve. I love the Beatles and Here Comes the Sun, but yeah, I dont feel that song being the sountrack for that song.

The 2nd one intrigues me more. I like doing things like the candle burning at 3:51. It makes an otherwise static boring shot more interesting. Keep it up. I will be looking for another program to do these montages in. I may justgo to AE and really learn it. I just love the real time editing of SE though. I could make changes in an instant. Oh well, time to move on.

I really like your videos (as you know). I thought this one really worked well. I think the thing I like about your montages are the uniqueness of them.

They remind me of bespoke furniture where each piece vibrates with the craftsman's spirit. As much as I appreciate programs that have templates to create finished projects, I sometimes feel that they lose some sense of the artist's soul in them, simply because templates were used. They look great, polished and professional, but when you see the same template in other work you kinda feel cheated that you're not getting a new visual experience. The old "I've seen that effect before" syndrome kicks in.

Your work retains the soul of the artist and I really like that.

The amount of work you put in, REALLY shows. I can only imagine that you've got a shed-load of custom Tool Shed presets saved from doing this type of work, otherwise it would take forever to recreate this in another project.

Taking your work to a new level?
I think a study of motion graphics and how to pick, create and utilise the various elements that go into the "bling" factor of presentation work (which would also explain how the templates in programs are made) can only serve to make your work even better. The Digital Juice website has great videos on how to use some of their tools. Motion Designers Toolkit is a good one to study (or buy).

I had to do this study when I got commissioned to do some work for a client and realised it took a very different way of thinking in order to simply reproduce an example that had been provided.

But once I worked out that everything seen in that example was made up of separate elements in and of themselves (i.e. an animated swirl was created in a separate program, a particle effect with DOF in another, a 3D background created in another) and brought together in an editor or compositing tool to produce a complex looking motion graphic, I then learned how those individual elements were created. Along my journey I realised I could create some very complex looking elements from very basic building blocks. From this, the possibilities of creativity were endless.

And once I had all these finished elements rendered out as separte files, I could re-used them multiple times in the same montage project as a backgrounds with colour differences controlled by using different blending modes of the editor, or foreground effects such as particles or animated vines growing, etc., or in completely new projects. The creative possibilities is endless.

But the thing I like most about this approach is that my elements are custom made, and how I can take just five or six different pre-made ones from my library and quickly come up with something new and unique for each client quickly and easily.

And all this from studying how motion graphics are created.

In case you're wondering, I use Lightwave 3D, TV Paint professional and SpeedEDIT to produce my bling.

Even so, these touches are no substitute for great content and that's what I like about your work. The content's always great.

IMNSHO montages are the most fun. Whether using templates and symbolicly hand crafting it as an artist would make it. I like to put in (when I can) Easter egg-type stuff as in the Girl's soccer montage link below. In the first song there is a mention of a roadrunner (I inserted the beep beep) while a young forward races ahead of the pack. Also the song says 'and its humbling' while the goalie has fallen to her hands and knees with her head down. All the kicks and runs are sync'd with the music. There are others and if I did not eventually mention them, the girls would not have put them together

Thanks for the praise. It's nice to hear once in a while, and even means more when coming from peers. I have not saved one thing in the tool shed. I never used it. Would it even work on other pictures? I ask because every picture is different and if I have it zoom in on someone's face now, it may be their foot in a different picture. I like my approach these dauys. I cringe when I think of a lot of those wedding videos I edited with the Toaster back in the 90s. It was great but I stuck in every different wipe they made because they looked "cool". Looks like **** today. There is no reason to have falling sheep or a sillhouette Kiki turning around to transition from one picture to the next. To me, the more effects used, the more amateur it looks. Its the same way how in TV and movies, there are usually no zooms or transitions. Pretty much cut cut cut cut and some special effects.

I admire your lightwave experience. I have tried it and could never grasp it. I want to use a camera to go by a picture instead of zooming up past it. Maybe I will give it another shot. Thanks again.

I have not saved one thing in the tool shed. I never used it. Would it even work on other pictures?...

It depends on the task needed. Let's take that picture frame example that Santiago VA mentioned. Suppose you had stored all the motion, scaling and what not, for the frame and picture as a toolshed preset and you had to start a new project later that year which required the same effect to be applied to a completely different frame and picture. The size of the new frame and picture wasn't the correct size, but were the correct aspect ratio, once you import them onto the timeline you would select your custom toolshed preset, apply it and all the motion, sizing, etc from the original frame and picture clip would be applied to it in a split second. Bam.

If you need to remove the effect, no problem, before you do anything, you'd make sure you've saved a toolshed preset that has no changes made to a clip on the timeline and name it "reset to default" or something similar, and apply that to remove a toolshed preset from the selected clip.

The point is, when you work on a project, if you have to repeatedly apply the same values to the same settings in the control tree for various clips, then that's when you should create a toolshed preset to speed things up. But only if you can't find what you need in the provided presets that come with SE2.

It's worth reading up on it. It's saved me a LOT of time and frustration for many different things. It's a real godsend.

I see what you are saying. I could save a few mtions that I created. The reason I dont do that is because I never like to use any templates. All of my proejcts are completely from scratch. Imagine doing a Sweet 16 video and getting a bunch of other jobs out of it. I certainly do not want all of the friends to have the same presets that I created, which I wouldnt want to do unless they specifically request one of them. On the other hand, there is no need to re-invent the wheel, so I could use certain motions on projects that wont be seen by other customers. Does that make sense to you? I'll look into saving that toolshed preset. THe only problem with that is that I may not be using SE anymore.

I see what you are saying. I could save a few mtions that I created. The reason I dont do that is because I never like to use any templates. All of my proejcts are completely from scratch. Imagine doing a Sweet 16 video and getting a bunch of other jobs out of it. I certainly do not want all of the friends to have the same presets that I created, which I wouldnt want to do unless they specifically request one of them.

The beauty of toolshed is that using one of your presets on another project doesn't mean you can't tweak the settings of that clip after the preset has been applied. Just use the preset to get rid of the lions share of work and then tweak the control tree settings for that clip to give it a bit more uniqueness. And remember, Toolshed presets can be used for more than just motion.

Originally Posted by Tony R

On the other hand, there is no need to re-invent the wheel, so I could use certain motions on projects that wont be seen by other customers.

Exactly right. As time goes on, you'll know when to create a preset, because you'll know when you're repeating yourself on clips.

Originally Posted by Tony R

The only problem with that is that I may not be using SE anymore.

That would be a real shame, because it sounds as though there are areas of SE features that you've not yet taken advantage of that you could possibly really benefit from.

I'll not lie to you, your previous comment on learning AE isn't a bad idea, but I have first hand experience of AE and know that it can be a HUGELY difficult program for a novice to get their head around. SpeedEDIT is childs play in comparison. AE delivers some fantastic results and is a very professional tool, however many people who use it rely on plugins because it means they don't have to get too deep into the operation of the program to achieve a similiar effect. And the really good plugins for AE aren't always cheap. Don't get me wrong, I love AE, I think it's one of the best programs I've ever used, but for photo montages etc, I think it's a bit like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. It's total overkill.

My point is, to give up on SE because of limited knowledge on how best to use it, may not be the best choice. I'm assuming that the main body of work you do, pertains to slideshows, montages, presentation type work. For this type of work I can't see how SE could be a problem for anyone, if they understand the best way to use it.

If I were you, I'd take a new look at my current workflow and make a list of the things I don't like about it and maybe post them up here and see if anyone can give you pointers on how to make it better (or just PM them to me and I'll make some suggestions).

What I meant about not using SE much longer is more due to the fact that it looks like we have the latest release and it will not be continued to be developed. It will be left in the dust when Windows 9 comes out and is 128 bit. It is bit away but what we are using will be archaec in a couple of years. We will be stuck using win 7 because there will be no drivers to support newer hardware. I want to move on before I am left behind. I sold my Toaster 4.5 system 2 years back before I was stuck with a huge brick.

My opening was created using a Digital Juice AE template. It's slick but it is obvious that I didn't make it. I will look deeper into it. I also agree that using AE is overkill for this work. I would never survive the waiting time between simple changes. That's why I love SE. I wish it was 64bit but I am getting by so far. We'll see what happens.